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Though to be honest: didn't whoever released the version containing the infamous page with "ejaculate" calligraphy passage partially guilty that the release was cancelled? It was posted in like every damn blog and forum where ever the majority or at least some people were opposed the release. Apparently one can translate it in a less offensive way... ( at least that's what I've read in few different forums )

Additionally less publicity (and less scanlated pages) for a title like KnJ would have been a good thing. And it was not that hard to foresee.

Hah... I think I'm starting to see things >.<
I've read the name of the cute pic on Watashiya-san's HP as amerika.gif ^^;
Wouldn't it make sense though? Aoki as American anime/manga fan and Rin as Kaworu? ^_-

sayonara first kiss XD
now this is just brilliant...i am loving how aoki and rin are developing as potential lovers (i mean why should aoki mind that kiss so if it isnt hinted that he has been thinking about it...)

Though to be honest: didn't whoever released the version containing the infamous page with "ejaculate" calligraphy passage partially guilty that the release was cancelled? It was posted in like every damn blog and forum where ever the majority or at least some people were opposed the release. Apparently one can translate it in a less offensive way... ( at least that's what I've read in few different forums )

May be there is no other way to THINK of it, but ther is certainly a less bold way to put it.

Also would you say that it sounds in Japanese as offensive as the said English translation?

Spoiler for one of the reasons why it doesn't sound so bad in Japanese seems to be:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swissman

"Nakadashi Kibou" doesn't mean she wants *him* to cum into *her*, because there's *no clear subject and object* in this phrase. It can mean she wants anyone to do that, not especially the teacher.
Japanese language can be wonderfully ambigous, right?

Well... "implicit" nouns aren't that ambiguous but there is some interpretation needed --- since her goal is to "freak teacher-san out" and/or drive him insane, I'd have to say it fits in with all her pranks directed at him. The "inside me" scene is more shocking than offensive. She's pushing his buttons (remember she pretty much caused the previous teacher to have a nervous breakdown).

Isn't it interesting that every single one of the "offensive scenes" is only offensive if the viewer ignores the lead-up and aftermath of the scene? They're certainly shocking... but only in that they demonstrate that Rin needs attention and help solving her internal dilemmas.

Here, let me show you a random scene of an adult male with a young girl in a state of partial undress: now interpret.
I'd probably suggest one interpretation might be a father dressing his daughter. People with mind-goblins see all sorts of other things and miss that one.

It really says a hell of a lot more about the viewer than the material

Alright, I have studied EVERY frame of EVERY released chapter in raw form. I went over them page by page, every one, every frame. At least twice now, and I can not see any "sexually explicit" "Sexual abuse" or any other unacceptable behavior.

Not ONCE is there a CLEAR nipple drawn with the areola on ANY of the small girls. Not once is there a Partial groin shot that isn't covered up in some way. And not once did I see Aoki open up and accept Rin's attentions as anything but completely mind blowing and distressing to him!

I even got my mother whom is a conservative when it comes to matters such as this to study the frames (even tho we couldn't read the language) and she found nothing that could be considered ANYTHING but MILDLY objectionable.

The language does have some information content that may be alarming but only in the "good lord this girl needs someone to help her" sense. Her pranks are meant to alarm. Some of the events are meant to make potential readers ask "whats going on?" and once they're engaged, feed them a interesting character drama.

Aye, my wife and sons have browsed the material. Her japanese is lousy (though she's japanese-american) but my two sons have also glanced over it (one is taking college level japanese, the other is in high school) and all their responses were "its dramatic, the comedy masks a serious situation.... its probably best suited for 16+ ..... but whats the big deal?"
(a collection of responses).

My wife concluded that though it had over-blown fantasy elements and some questionable eyecatches and chapter page art, that it had something useful to say to teachers who might have to deal with children who act out (certainly less controversial than the "very special episode" type of show or some of the horrific CSI/Bones/Law&Order/N3mbers episodes I've seen in the last two weeks). N3mbers had an episode focusing on chatroom predators, underage kids, and vigilante beating people to death with a baseball bat quite graphically portrayed.

I think the defamation of the story is driven by an almost fundamentalist irrational group (and I don't mean in a religious sense but in a zealot sense) and fired up by severely undereducated mob..
I think that segments of society and even people in important positions are *so* out of touch ... and I'll say it: undereducated that they live in completely mythic realities informed by anxiety-ridden spouts from "News you need to know" and "Fair and Balanced" ... all designed to maximize the fear through the next commercial break.

...and they seem to be terrified of what is a rather comparatively mild psychological character drama with some comedic breaks.

May be there is no other way to THINK of it, but ther is certainly a less bold way to put it.

Also would you say that it sounds in Japanese as offensive as the said English translation?

Good point. I suppose you could remove the subject, but it's heavily implied in Japanese to the point that there's very little room for a different context. I believe the scanlations had the inferred parts in parentheses to reflect this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vexx

The language does have some information content that may be alarming but only in the "good lord this needs someone to help her" sense. Her pranks are meant to alarm. Some of the events are meant to make potential readers ask "whats going on?" and once they're engaged, feed them a interesting character drama.

"its dramatic, the comedy masks a serious situation.... its probably best suited for 16+ ..... but whats the big deal?"
(a collection of responses).

My wife concluded that though it had over-blown fantasy elements and some questionable eyecatches and chapter page art, that it had something useful to say to teachers who might have to deal with children who act out (certainly less controversial than the "very special episode" type of show or some of the horrific CSI/Bones/Law&Order/N3mbers episodes I've seen in the last two weeks). N3mbers had an episode focusing on chatroom predators, underage kids, and vigilante beating people to with a baseball bat quite graphically portrayed.

...and they seem to be terrified of what is a rather comparatively mild psychological character drama with some comedic breaks.

This pretty much sums up my interpretation of the story so far. It isn't shocking in a 'ZOMG Burn it with fire!!' way, but in a 'get this to a shrink, stat' way. The only thing humorous is her method of acting out - everything else seems have a dark cloud over it.

I just wanted to say how much I have appreciated this thread recently. Those of you with some Japanese skills have added to my understanding and appreciation of the manga and the issues immensely. Thank you everyone.

I also want to echo Vexx's comments that have edged towards what I think this manga is really about: teaching/caregiving to children. As a teacher myself, I have seen so many things in this manga so far that echo my own experiences in small ways -- and I teach high school! Perhaps it's because of that, that I have trouble seeing the lolicon aspect of this story, instead seeing the problems and trials of a teacher.

I also want to echo Vexx's comments that have edged towards what I think this manga is really about: teaching/caregiving to children. As a teacher myself, I have seen so many things in this manga so far that echo my own experiences in small ways -- and I teach high school! Perhaps it's because of that, that I have trouble seeing the lolicon aspect of this story, instead seeing the problems and trials of a teacher.

We have the same PoV on this matter

Quote:

I think the defamation of the story is driven by an almost fundamentalist irrational group (and I don't mean in a religious sense but in a zealot sense) and fired up by severely undereducated mob..
I think that segments of society and even people in important positions are *so* out of touch ... and I'll say it: undereducated that they live in completely mythic realities informed by anxiety-ridden spouts from "News you need to know" and "Fair and Balanced" ... all designed to maximize the fear through the next commercial break.

Like Ueda I wanted to say how much I appreciate this thread for the insights into Kodomo no Jikan too and above most for how maturely some of you talk about the content and the whole debacle which happened with the cancellation of "Nymphet". I was one of the few defenders of Kodomo no Jikan at ANN and I'm seriously disappointed at what happened in the last three weeks. At least here I feel like reading opinions of people who don't mind Kojika for being what it is: an interesting drama manga with comedy interludes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vexx

Well... "implicit" nouns aren't that ambiguous but there is some interpretation needed

I'm the one who Hayami cited. What I tried to explain over there is that the phrase "nakadashi kibou", grammatically speaking, is less direct that the well-known english translation and hence more ambigous. I guess I confused even more readers for that, so I apologize

heh... I considered deleting most of that post because I let my aggravation with things leak out. Thanks.

@Tatakae: brave poster you were ... from what I browsed it was a regular witchburning mob, 98% of which started their posts with "I've not read the manga but..." or "I can't read japanese but..." or, well that's the idea. The other 2% were either willfully mispresenting the facts, could read less Japanese than they thought, were reacting to third-hand babble, or were woefully ill-equipped to interpret a story

The best defense to this garbage is to simply do the scanlations as accurately as possible. Discuss what the material is *actually* about. If a later volume indeed crosses "the line", so it goes ... but nothing seems to be heading that way. Accuracy and honesty at least makes them look even more like stupid-heads. (sorry, that's one of my wife's favorite insults)

Aye... their speed should actually be worrisome. It means they're unlikely sending the translate/edit results through any kind of serious peer review. Manga translation may be easier than "translating by listening to anime dialog" ... but manga *meaning and interpretation* can be more difficult because you *have* the kanji and wordplay implicitness to consider. Anime dialog just often tends to be simpler --- you can see the effect in those anime series where the dialog is more critical (Lucky*Star, Paniponidash, etc).

I can't say who has the more accurate translations between SaHa and NLB, since working faster doesn't always mean being less accurate... but I do notice glaring differences in some of the translations of chapter 6.

SaHa:
[Aoki] "How did it go, Houin Sensei? You know... with that one family you went to see..."
[Houin] "Huh? Oh, nothing special, I guess. The same as I do with all the other kids, I suppose. Praise them, scold them... that sort of thing."

NLB:
[Aoki] "Houin-sensei, suppose a student of yours only had one parent... how would you handle it?"
[Houin] "Well... I wouldn't give preferential treatment. They'd be praised and scolded, the same as any child."

#5
Chap6, page 17, bottom-right scene, right-most speech balloon.
SaHa: "Don't worry. Just act like you usually do..."
NLB: "So, just treat them like you would the rest of your students."
----
Most other translations are more-or-less similar. But these discrepancies in translations means that someone's off on their translating... for numbers 3 and 4, REALLY off.

P.S.
@MakubeX2
Thanks for posting the links... That's how I made my comparisons. Waiting for your group's future releases

Last edited by bleakessence; 2007-06-10 at 20:03.
Reason: Post-scriptum